


Lady Loki

by Dillian



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 1970's AU, F/M, Hustler Thor, Limited-Narrator Tony, M/M, Multi, Orgy, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Transphobia, Sexual Content, Suburban Tony and Pepper, Trans Female Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-04-20 10:25:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4783961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Have I already summarized this whole story in the tags?  Maybe, maybe not.  I'll just lay it out a little more clearly, here:  Tony and Pepper are a typical upper-middle class couple, in a typical suburb, sometime in the early 70's.  Tony's job is good enough, and Pepper's life is good enough, but when the rest of the world is experimenting sexually, they decide that they want to as well.  This brings them to a pair living on the streets downtown, and that brings them to some new relationships, and some pain for all involved.</p><p>Normally I like a really specific setting, but for this story, not so much.  Picture the neighborhood from <i>Edward Scissorhands</i>, and you will have a pretty good idea where this story is taking place.  Or, if you know the song "Little Boxes," by Malvina Reynolds?  ...Anyway, here's the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Portrait of Lady Loki, courtesy of [BlindSwandive](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BlindSwandive), and used with her permission.

 

And now, begins the story.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/blindswandive/9975388/777/777_original.jpg

“The local rock group down the street  
Is trying hard to learn their song.  
They serenade the weekend squire  
Who just came out to mow his lawn.

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday,  
Charcoal burning everywhere.  
Rows of houses that are all the same,  
And no one seems to care.”  
\-- The Monkees, “Pleasant Valley Sunday”

**_The Avengers_ , _Iron Man_ , and _Thor_ , and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.**

I saw Lady Loki again, the other day. And she was beautiful, just like she always was. Pride Parade: Did you know they have Pride Parades nowadays? And the whole point is for gay people to strut their stuff. Thor wasn’t there, because, well, obviously. But Loki was there, she was there with a lot of her friends, and some of them were beautiful like her, and some were just the most horrible, screaming queens that you ever saw. But she was beautiful, she’s always been beautiful, and I think that was what was the biggest part of the problem.

Well, I guess I’d better start. My life is a horrible cliché. I am the man with the little house with the picket fence, and the two wives, and the kids. And yes, I did say that wrong, you see, I don’t have any kids. Only have one wife now, too, but don’t think I’ve forgotten what it was like when they were both here, yeah, and Thor too. Yeah, those were the good times.

And first of all, it was me and Pepper. And we were your typical suburban couple, cocktails and casseroles, and me out in front mowing the lawn on Saturdays, and the smell of the cut grass almost, but never quite strong enough to drown out the stink of the gas from the lawn mower. And then if I finished in time, maybe nine holes at the public links. Don’t think I’m a millionaire here, I bring in enough, but we’re not country club level, me and Pepper. And here I come in, wash the grass off my hands, maybe change the old trousers before heading out.

You know, I never thought about what Pepper did, those Saturdays when I was gone? I mean, people talk about housecleaning, but let’s face it, the average house these days doesn’t take much cleaning. And god forbid she should have a job, the boss would have had kittens if he found out my wife was working, it’s different now, but back then? Back then, never. And I never thought about it, I just figured she did what women do. Lead the Brownie troop down the street, have the girls over for creamy pie and shit in the middle of the afternoon, and have Tupperware parties or whatever, that would have been my guess, if I ever gave it any thought, which I didn’t. I was just, you know, caught up in my own life, trying to make it to the top, whatever that means these days, and so on and so forth.

Then one day, she says she wants to have an orgy. Just like that, she says, “Tony, I’m bored, I want to have an orgy.”

I don’t know where she got the idea. Women get ideas these days, and who knows where they come from, daytime TV, or those books they’re always reading, or who knows? Women’s magazines, maybe? But she comes to me, and she says, “I want to have an orgy,” and I say to her, “That’s fine with me, what about Mrs. Barton down the street,” you know, just teasing like? Because Natasha Barton’s this cute redhead, like, not my type at all, I prefer them more ladylike, like Pepper, but there has always been this tension between them, especially when both of them have had a few cocktails. So I say to her, “That Natasha’s a hot little number, I could go for her, and what about you and Clint?”

So she gives me the stink eye, and she doesn’t mention it for a while. I thought it was over and done with, but then one day, here she comes again. This time, she’s like, “Male hustlers, you can hire them, Tony, and they’ll do stuff with you.”

And I go, “Male _hustlers_ , how do you even know about them?” I was like, you know, “This idea is completely new to me, it comes totally out of left field,” which it wasn’t, but what was I going to say, “I’ve seen them too, Pepper, and I have had some thoughts myself”?

Well, I wasn’t going to say that, of course. Yeah, I’d had some thoughts, that’s just healthy male sexuality, right? Men are polymorphous, we’d do it with a knothole, if we couldn’t find anything better, and some of those guys are really built. Yeah, I’d seen ‘em, and I knew where to find ‘em, but Pepper was the little woman, she wasn’t supposed to know those things.

Back then, I had a lot to learn about women, and you know the funny thing was, it was Lady Loki who taught me most of it. I would never tell Pepper that, but this isn’t for Pepper. This is just a journal, I’m writing it for me. …No, that’s not the truth. I’m writing it for Lady Loki, and after it’s finished, maybe I can get up the nerve to give it to her.

She’ll probably throw it in back my face. But that’s the beauty of Loki, it’s all in how brave she is, and how proud. One thing I’m glad of anyway, is that we never managed to kill that brave spirit in her, because we could have done it, Pepper and me, for a while there, back when we were all still thick as thieves.


	3. Chapter 3

Well Pepper comes to me, with her idea. She’s like, “We’ll hire a male hustler, Tony, and I know just where to find them.”  
And me, I was just trying to hide the fact that I already knew where to find them, and you know, looking back, I don’t know why I bothered? What did I think was going to happen? Did I seriously think she would leave? But I didn’t know Pepper as well as I do now, back then I still had all these really stereotypical notions…

Okay, it wasn’t just Lady Loki that taught me stuff. Pepper did too, she taught me a lot. You know, sometimes I think if we men would just shut up a little more, our women could teach us, they could teach us more than we could learn from each other, if we spent our whole lives doing it. Maybe I’m wrong? What do you think?

…I should probably erase that last part, because if Lady Loki reads it…

_Lady_ Loki, by the way, because that’s what she calls herself. Always Lady Loki, never just Loki, or Frank, or Henry, or whatever name it was that she was born with. And her partner was Thor, but it was probably Lady Loki that chose that name too. Thor was your corn-fed all-American type, he would have been happy calling himself whatever, like, just his birth-name, probably, or whatever the trick who’d picked him up wanted him to be called.

“Tricks,” you understand, are the men that hire the hustlers. Because it is usually men. The hustlers will say, “We’re straight,” they’ll say, “We would go with a woman, in fact we prefer going with women,” but let’s face it: Any woman can get a man, any time she wants. All she has to do is indicate that she’ll put out, they’ll be flocking to her. I know Pepper could get any man she wanted, what with her looks. Thing with her is, she looks all cool, calm and unapproachable, right? But underneath there’s this hint that inside she’s not like that, and she would be a firecracker in bed. Which she is, by the way. Pepper is one hot little tamale, and even though I’ve strayed… Well, let’s just say it wasn’t because I wasn’t getting all a man could want at home.

I should go back and erase a lot of what I’ve written so far. It’s just the most terrible shit, and if Lady Loki does read it, it’ll just piss her off. But why bother, it’s not like I’ll ever show it to her. Probably I’ll never even see her again, just because she was at that one Pride Parade… People who live like her don’t last long, that’s all I’m saying.

…Anyway though, I wanted to tell about how we met Lady Loki and Thor. And it all started when Pepper brought that up about us and the hustler, and after that, right away she wanted us to go and find one. _Us_ , you understand, not me. She was like, “I know where to look,” and she looked at me. Look said, “I know you know where to look too, and I know why, but I’m not going to talk about it, we don’t need to talk about anything unless _you_ want to, Tony.”

Her blue eyes, with that look in them. Her smile… Pepper has the best smile. And she always wears the same pink lipstick, that’s the exact right shade for her, with her red hair, and her blue, blue eyes. I think the style was for frosted lips that year, and all the other women in the world were going around with their lips whiter than the whole rest of their face, but there was Pepper, wearing what she always does, like, the perfect make-up, and the perfect clothes, and the perfect everything.

And I didn’t want to talk to her, not about anything. You think marriages should be about perfect connection, and if you don’t share everything, well you’re not doing it right, but that’s not true. Marriages are just about finding someone compatible, and hey, maybe you’ve looked at a man now and then? Hell, maybe she has too, maybe she had a hot thing with the Fuller Brush Man, the last time he came to call, or she’s secretly getting it on with the guy down the street who works nights, or something. It’s about staying together, is what it is, about you find out things about each other, and you learn to trust each other, and after a while you can’t say good-bye, you’ve got too much invested in things.

…And so anyway, we go out, and we hop into the Chrysler… Which was the latest model that year. I’d just gotten a raise, and the boss likes it when he can see some of the money he’s giving us. …So, we get into the Chrysler, we drive downtown.

Sleazy sleazy part of downtown… Have you ever noticed how the hookers always find the worst part of town to hang out in? Male or female, it’s exactly the same, and there were old cans, and old bottles, and wrappers blowing by, and this look in the corners of the alleys, like you didn’t know what would come out of there, maybe it would be a rat, or maybe it would be some guy with a knife, and he’d rob you and leave you for dead. …And we go down there, Pepper and me, and it turns out she knows exactly the right street to be on.

And it was about ten at night then, and they were all out there. All these beautiful guys… Well, you have to be beautiful to make it as a male hustler. I don’t know why, the girls are never much to look at, but with the boys? And they are boys, most of the time, like, underage, teenaged kids, and they’re gone by the time they reach 21, they’re either out of the business, or they’re dead. And sometimes I think about that, and it makes me sad in a way, but that night I was with Pepper, and we were all business. And then she sees this one guy, she says, “Tony, look there, look at him…”

You know, most of the hustlers have a queen that they go with. The queens are like the girlfriends, and to hear them talk, that’s just what they are, too. They’ll be like, “Oh, I’m a woman, honey, I’m such a woman. And my man is a real man, he never does it with another man unless he gets paid, because I want a _man_ , I wouldn’t go with another queen like me.” The thing that was different about Thor and Lady Loki though, is that they were always together. Most of the time, the queen will be somewhere else, she’ll be living her own life. She’s certainly not out on the streets all the time with her hustler-boyfriend, because let’s face it: Most men don’t want that. Because they’re queers, or I should say they’re _gay_. A gay man is just like a queen, he wants to be with a man, and the queens are women, so the gays don’t want ‘em.

I’m telling you what I’ve seen. And I’m probably doing a horrible job of it, I really will have to erase most of this, or tear out the pages or something. Hell, maybe I should just get her a card. Happy Birthday, to a Beautiful Lady (who’s a man underneath), or Happy Anniversary (of the day you walked out on me), or… I don’t know, I’ll probably just keep going. But I definitely can’t give this to Lady Loki, not now, not when she hates me so much already.


	4. Chapter 4

Lady Loki is brave, really brave. Every morning, she walks out of the house looking like… Well, there’s a law, saying that you have to dress like a man on the street, but Lady Loki pushes it, she pushes it so far it almost doesn’t exist anymore, as in, she’ll be wearing men’s pants, maybe, but with a woman’s shirt on top, and with her hair too long, and always with some eye make-up on, laws or no laws. I know she’s gotten arrested for it, not that she would ever talk about that, but she just keeps doing it, and she’ll tell you, “What am I supposed to do, lie about who I am?”

But this was at night, when we first saw them, and believe me, Lady Loki wasn’t wearing any men’s clothes at all. And what I remember is, Pepper and I were driving along. Light was from these fly-by-night businesses, like bars, and seedy little Mom-and-Pop restaurants and shit like that. And there were street lamps, not very many street lamps, but some anyway, and it seemed like the hustlers were all trying to stand under the street lamps, you know, trying to get our attention. And we’re driving along, we see dark-haired men, and blond-haired men, then all of a sudden in this one pool of light, we see a vision.

And it was Lady Loki that hit us first, she was like this vision of gold, and green, and black, like, this skintight green gown with some gold sparkles on it, and a fur wrap over her shoulders, and her long black hair, rippling halfway down her back. A wig, that was of course, because even Lady Loki wouldn’t have dared to wear her hair that long during the day, but do you think that mattered? You see someone like that, and you don’t question the details.

And we were driving by, and we saw her. Pepper said, “What do you suppose that is?” And I don’t know if I said anything back.

What I was thinking was, she looked like she could go onstage, right like that. She was like a nightclub singer, like Ginger Grant, from _Gilligan’s Island_ , you know, the “Movie Star”. And you know, some parts of town, you just say to yourself, “It’s a man,” when you see somebody like that. Some parts of town, it seems like all the women are really men, even though it’s easier to tell with some of them than with others. Lady Loki looked just like a really glamorous woman, but you could still tell, only because she was so tall, and because what real woman would have been out on the street, looking like that?

I’m definitely not going to show this to her. Even while I was writing that last part… I know I can’t show it to her, she would be mad. Well, mad doesn’t really cover it, because in her mind, she is a real woman, and those friends of hers are real women, not just the ones that can pass, but all of them, even the really old, really ugly ones, that look like a stevedore in a dress. Lady Loki stands up for herself, and for her friends, and when she was with us, I used to try to always talk as respectfully as possible. Now look at me slipping back into bad habits. 

Oh well, what am I going to do? I’m only human. I think next time I see her, I’m going to give her flowers. It’ll just be cheap ones, because of course I won’t know that I’m going to see her, but… Well, the Pride Parade next year: I’ll get a really good bouquet, in case I do see her, and if I don’t, I can tell Pepper it’s for her. Won’t be the first time I’ve lied to her.

No, but I was saying: We were driving along, when we saw this vision, under a street lamp. And you would have thought it was a woman, because she looked exactly like one, and you wouldn’t even have noticed the height, except that she had her arm around this other man, and he was shorter than her.

That was Thor. He’s not really shorter than her, it’s just when she’s wearing heels. Which she does, all the time, whenever she can get away with it, and one of the things she used to love when she was living with us, was that she could wear them during the day too. She loved that about living at our house, and she toned down the look too, until you would have thought she was just another housewife. 

Funniest thing in the whole world, was when Pepper would let her come to a Tupperware party or one of those things. I remember one day, I came home, Pep was in the kitchen doing something or other, and Lady Loki was in the living room, she had this tray, and she was picking up the dirty dishes. I come in, and she looks up at me, and I swear, I almost didn’t recognize her. And she does this comedy thing, where she was imitating all the ladies from the neighborhood, and I told her she was so good, she should be playing in Vegas.

I wonder if she would have stayed if I could have set something like that up. Because it wasn’t any problem, getting Thor to stay, but with Lady Loki… I should have known from the beginning. And I told her, “That was great, you’re great, way better than any comedienne I’ve ever seen…”

“ _Comedienne_ ”, you understand, because it’s the female form of comedian. Those kinds of things always mattered a lot with her.

…I tell her, “You should be playing Vegas,” but instead of looking flattered, she just looked sad.

And then the sadness kind of wiped off her face. Like, one minute it was there, the next minute it was gone completely. “But that would be so boring,” Lady Loki says. “Why would I want to get shackled into any kind of a long-term commitment like that? I just want to have fun.” And she looks at me, and all I can see in her green eyes is playfulness, and she shoves the tray of dishes at me. “Make yourself useful, husband,” she says, “while the Little Woman pours herself a drink.”

But I was talking about the first time we met her. And I was telling how she was so drop-dead gorgeous, and that’s what caught our eyes, because of course we’d come out looking for a _male_ hustler, because that’s what Pepper wanted. And then we drove past Lady Loki, and…

There’s no point me lying, here in my own diary. Who would I be lying to anyway, myself? Because that’s all who’s ever going to see this. I saw Lady Loki that night, and I knew that’s what I wanted. And it wasn’t the first time, I’ve seen men like that… Women like that… Whatever… When I see a really good female impersonator on the street, I always get a little curious, and Lady Loki was the best female impersonator I’d ever seen. 

I saw her, and I started wondering about what was under her skirt, only I’d talked to female impersonators before. They’re not all prostitutes, and here this one was, with a man already in her arms.

I saw her with Thor, and I said something out loud, I think I said, “There go a couple of homosexuals.”

And Pepper was looking at Thor, and believe me, he was something to look at… Still is, for that matter. …She had eyes for no one but him, she was eating him up with her eyes. And at the time, he was wearing his blond hair cut real short, and he had this white t-shirt on, rolled-sleeves, so he could show off his biceps. And his chest, which was already really well defined… Lord knows how he managed that, when he was living on the street.

Pepper looks at me, she says, “That muscle-man, you think he’s queer too?”

I said, “Pretty definitely, because look who he’s with.”

I would have given it up right then, if it was just me. Because here was this incredible female impersonator, and just looking at her, just getting a load of her, standing there under the street lamp… Well I didn’t think she was a prostitute, and just looking at her had kind of spoiled me for picking up anyone else, and I probably would have gone on home. But Pepper’s always been the brave one, she had me pull over to the curb right next to them, and she rolls down her window…

Pep had never been with a prostitute before, I knew that the same way that she knew that this wasn’t my first time, not that we would ever call each other on it, or judge each other, or any of that. I knew it the same way I know that Pepper likes to sleep facing the window, and that she thinks paisley sheets are “tacky” (which they are), and how to order her steak, if she’s gone to the powder room, when the waiter comes around. But one thing about Pep, is she’s brave, and she’s almost too daring. We go over to the curb, and she rolls down her window. “You into women?” she calls to Thor.

That one could have backfired on us big-time. I have seen undercover cops in drag, who looked pretty damn convincing. Don’t know if they’d have gone as far as to be cuddling up against each other on the street, but you never know, I wouldn’t put anything past them. But it turned out all right. Pepper yells, “Are you into women,” and Thor looked at Lady Loki, and I saw her give a little nod.

He comes over to the car. “Thirty bucks,” he says. “For each of us. The lady always comes with me.”

The _lady_. Pepper looks at me, and I see one eyebrow go up. “The ‘lady’?” she’s mouthing.

I kind of nudge her a little. “Muscle-man’s willing,” I say, “and I’ve got the sixty bucks.”

Well after that, I parked the car, and I did the gentleman thing. I wouldn’t have bothered for just Thor, but this was different, and it was because of “the _lady_ ”. I got out and I opened Lady Loki’s door for her, and she got in, kind of a production, with her tight, sheath-dress, and her five-inch heels. And then I closed the door for her, and I said to her, “I’m glad you’re coming.”

She looks at me, just the faintest hint of a smile, half-lowering of the long, black lashes, over her incredible green eyes, just for a moment. “I am too,” she says.


	5. Chapter 5

Thing with Thor, was right from the start, we both loved him. I don’t know what his story was, I mean, I know what he told us. Hustlers do this thing where they tell you what to hear, and this was more complicated than that. This had a whole new level, because I know Lady Loki, if she didn’t give him a story to tell?

I don’t know, maybe the whole thing was true. Maybe they really were raised together, maybe Thor’s father was some rich guy with clout… In politics, he always said. Up north somewhere, Minneapolis maybe. That part wasn’t too clear. But he would tell the story, and it featured him as the young, upstanding boy. He was Robert Taylor, or William Holden… All of Lady Loki’s stories came right out of the movies. …He was like a Golden Age Hollywood-prettyboy, like Mickey Rooney, only not short, and more trustworthy than Ronald Reagan (who wasn’t in politics yet, in those days). And Lady Loki was like the cuckoo in the nest. She was Jane Eyre or Sarah Crewe, the one that got brought home, only she never got brought into the family.

Then, so the story went, that’s when Thor fell in love with her. And the parents hated it, and they threw both of them out… In the snow, probably. Possibly with some bloodhounds there to chase them across the frozen river. Then they were like Romeo and Juliet, the Great Lakes version. Was it true? It didn’t matter. Lady Loki always knew the power of the story. And Thor would tell this thing… With his big blue eyes, and his nice, friendly smile. And the golden stubble that always started forming along his cheekbones, as soon as he would put the razor down, and his voice so innocent and plausible. He would tell us all this, and from him it didn’t sound like a lie.

And he was nice, you know? He wasn’t like the other hustlers… What do I know about the other hustlers? Actually, I know more than you’d think. Because I saw them when me and Lady Loki would go out, we’d go out together, and always to where they hung out. To the hustler-bars, all these cheapass, shitty little places. Kind of places where you don’t know what’s holding it together, baling wire maybe? Places where your drink comes in a dirty glass, hell, your drink looks dirty too, a lot of the time, and you don’t know what they’re pouring in there, maybe it’s booze, maybe it’s cleaning fluid, strained through somebody’s skirt. Places like… You ever read about Prohibition? Bathtub gin, bootleg hooch. That’s what the shit tasted like at those places, and you could practically see the fake label on the bottle they would have poured it from, that said “Made in Canada,” even though it had just come out of the bathtub in back. And Lady Loki and me would go to those places. We’d go, because…

I want to lie and say we went because I knew she would want to see her friends again, but what’s the point of that when I’m the only one that’s going to read this? We went because I wanted some hot action. Not that I didn’t want her in bed with me, but…

You get jaded, you know? Well maybe you don’t. Whoever “you” even is, when this is a diary anyway? _I_ got jaded. Once upon a time when I was happy with just Pepper, started feeling like a long time ago, it started feeling like Never-Neverland, and first it was Lady Loki _and_ Thor (and Pepper, if she was agreeable), then after a while that stopped feeling like enough too. After a while… Well it’s like drinking, isn’t it? Where first just one cocktail knocks you back on your keister, then you need two, then you need three. Then you’re waking up facedown on the desk at work, and you’re still smashed, and you have a problem, you’re an alcoholic. What it felt like back then, was like being a sex-oholic, like there wasn’t such a thing as enough anymore, I had to always be searching after a bigger thrill.

So we’d go to these hustler-bars. The kids would be there, little posturing street-rats, none of them could hold a candle to Thor in terms of looks. They’d be there, and their queens would be there. Queens are distinctive, once you know how to look for ‘em. In drag or out of drag, you can tell, it’s not just that they’re swishy, because a lot of homosexuals are like that, but the queens are… Well, they act girly, is what I mean. They act like they want to be girls, which is different from having a limp wrist, or just being a pansy. It’s like… Only way I can describe it, it’s more so, a lot more, and once you’re clued in, you can spot it every time.

Anyway, the queens would be there, they would be putting on airs, which is what they all do. Lot of princesses going to a debutante ball, that’s what they act like, like they’re doing a guy a favor just to go with him. I should have taken some of those girls home with me. They’d have shown me a good time, I know that now. Hell, I should have known that back then.

But I didn’t. Or if I did, I would be lying to myself. And we went to those places because I wanted a hustler, or more than one hustler even, sometimes just one of them wouldn’t be enough. And I would try to pretty it up… Sometimes I would. …I’d say, “Pepper wants a foursome, Pepper wants an orgy…” You know, when I bothered at all, when I didn’t just come right out and say it was for me.

“Let’s mix it up a little tonight,” I’d say. 

And sometimes Lady Loki would give me a look like she didn’t know why she put up with me, sometimes she wouldn’t even bother. “Fine,” she’d say, “I certainly like getting creative,” and we’d go to those hustler bars, we’d pick up a guy, or maybe two or three.

Which is a long way for me to get to what I was saying in the first place, which was about Thor. The point I was trying to make was, those guys didn’t know how to treat the queens. They’d mooch off them, you know, they’d take advantage. They would always be stealing their clothes and shit, they’d grab everything that wasn’t nailed down and they’d pawn it, or sell it outright for drug money. Only Thor was different. He would fight with Lady Loki sometimes, but even at his worst, even the couple of times I saw him hit her… Well, I always saw the love there too, is what I’m getting at. Those two were like _that_ together, bonded so tight a crowbar couldn’t have pulled them apart.

Lady Loki, if you ever read this… Which you won’t. … Lady Loki, I’m sorry. We never meant to pull you apart, you know that, right? It was just us, thinking we were going to help.


	6. Chapter 6

I could still go back to it all, as easy as that. Really, that sex-oholic thing I was talking about before, that makes almost too much sense. It makes scary amounts of sense. Right now for instance, you want to know what I’m thinking about? If I let myself think about it, you want to know?

Pictures of what it was like, I just think of it, and right away they’re right there in my head. And I’m telling myself, “Tony, you need them. Because it’s context,” my brain is saying, “because how else are people going to understand?”

Right. All the “people” who are going to read this. What does that make, brain, you want to count it? Me, myself and I, that’s who’s going to read this, because I’m certainly not going to show it to anyone. Only person I’d like to show it to is Lady Loki, and I haven’t even seen her lately. Because I’ll confess, after that Pride Parade, I went around that part of town a few times.

Few times? Hell, first week or two after that, maybe the first month? I was there every day, literally, every fuckin’ _day_. Lady Loki, where are you? I just want to see you again, you know, to know you’re all right?

No, that’s not true, I want her to forgive me. And she won’t, lord knows she’s said that often enough. And she walked away from me, and she was fine, and she’s still fine …I hope she’s fine. And when I find her again …if I find her again, I am going to tell her, “I’m sorry, I was wrong, Lady Loki, please just take me back.” 

And she’ll spit right in my fuckin’ face. And that’s more than I deserve.

But if I’m going to do this, I’ve got to do it right. If I’m going to tell this story, and I am going to tell it, but if I do, well then I have to do it right. And do I need context? Do I need to go into detail, well, one dick feels this way, and it’s like this, when you put two of them in, and then there’s ways you can go down on a guy at the same time, or you can watch one guy doing another one, and then you’re getting fucked at the same time… Just all this stuff, I’ll admit, I still think about it. I think about it all the time, and when I do?

The worst thing is, it ruins you for the regular stuff. You want to know when was the last time with Pepper and me, literally, anyone want to make a guess?

Anyone of the one person who’s ever going to read this, and he knows already: Two months and counting, baby, two cold, dry months. And we used to do it just about every night. And it was good, and I could go into details about that. …And I want to go into details about that, even though it’s not what I was really into, it would still… You know, it would scratch the itch? God, think of me using her like that, I’m not going to use her like that, Pepper is a lady, and she’s my wife, and she deserves better.

And if I’m not going to do it to her, I’m a thousand times not doing it to Lady Loki. Sorry Pepper, but you know how it is… You knew how it was. You know all about those months we had together, those few, beautiful months. You know what Lady Loki became to me, you watched it happen, and you know bonds like that don’t break just because you say good-bye.

I’m going to try and tell this, but I’m going to make it pretty. And I’ll warn you right now, I’m not good at pretty. It’s like something got left out of me when I was born, or I don’t know… Hell, I’m a man, men aren’t good at feelings, and we can’t make with the hearts and flowers, even when the situation calls for them. It’s just not in our natures. But I’m going to try, because it’s what Pepper deserves. And it’s what Lady Loki deserves, and those are them, the two beautiful women in my life. I’m going to try to tell this the way they deserve for it to be told:

That first night, we came home, my beautiful Pepper in the front seat next to me, and Lady Loki, equally beautiful (but Thor’s back then, not mine yet), sitting in the back seat. And the idea of course, was we were doing this for fun and games, right? Just simple fun and games, just bring the men together, and the girls, and we all get naked, and we play hide the salami.

It was never fun and games. Not really, not completely …not at all, if I really want to be honest about it. What it was…

Picture the scene, okay? Guy comes home with his wife, and the hustler in the back seat of the car. Hustler that the lady wanted more than the man did, only if we’re being honest here, of course he wanted it too. And they’re coming home, whole idea is they’re going to fuck of course. Maybe they’ve got it figured out too, maybe they know, he’s going to do it first, or maybe she’s going to do it first, who knows?

Actually, it was her. Because I like doing stuff for Pepper, and I knew she wanted it, first she was going to have her fun with Thor, and then I was going to have a chance at him. So we bring ‘em home, him and Lady Loki.

All of us together in the bedroom… Did we go to the bedroom right away? We didn’t that’s how I remember it, we were going to, but then…

It was like a romance, that’s how I remember it, like we brought them home so we could fuck them, but then when we got there, somehow that changed. I said before, Lady Loki is all about the story, but that’s not really how it is. How it really is, it’s like she brings her stories to life, like you might go in there not buying it, but then you’re around her, and after a while you believe the whole thing.

How it was, was that we brought home some good fuck-material, but when we arrived it’s like it turned into a double date. Like, two couples sitting on two sofas, and Thor was making out with Pepper, and there I was with Lady Loki, and we were smooching up a storm…

“Smooching:” Lady Loki would hate me saying that. “So tacky, Tony,” that’s what she would say. “We were _kissing_ , why do people always have to make everything as ugly as possible?”

…We were kissing, and Thor and Pepper were kissing. And that was all it was, was kissing, and it kept on being only kissing, for… Well, for a lot longer than you’d have expected, that’s how long it was just kissing. We did get to the fucking that night, but not until late, first we kissed for a long time, and then Pepper wanted some snacks. And Lady Loki said she’d help her in the kitchen, and they went in there, came back with this tray that had everything on it.

You know those spreads you see in the magazines? Roman Meal bread, or EZ Cheese, or… I don’t know, you know the things I’m talking about? Lot of little sandwiches with things on them, little curls of parsley around them, slices of olives shaped like smiles and all that shit? Little glasses of cocktails next to them, the cocktails were Lady Loki’s idea, and believe me, she made a lousy cocktail back in those days.

I don’t remember what we drank, Manhattans maybe, or the shittiest, sweetest Martinis in the whole history of mankind? She was so cute, she didn’t know shit about cocktails. But of course, why would she? What was she back then, eighteen maybe, or nineteen at the oldest?

Back then, Lady Loki knew how to be Lady Loki, and that’s all she knew. And believe me, she picked up some polish, when she was with us, she learned all this stuff, like history, and how to talk properly, and how to make a good Martini. And toward the end, you wouldn’t have known there was a man under there at all, I mean, even if you had known, toward the end of when she was with us, you still would have wanted to look twice, just to be sure. She was the epitome, back then toward the end of everything, and she was having fun, and she was giving us so much fun.

And then it all had to go and end, and that was my fault. And it was Pepper’s fault too, some of it, but mostly it was mine. God, it was good while it lasted though, it was so very good…

But I wanted to talk about that first night: Two or three hours of kissing on the sofa, before we did anything. And after that we had the cocktails, with those horrible little snacks on the side. Wieners cut so they would make circles, that was the kind of stuff Lady Loki made for us that night, but the thing I want to make clear is, she made it work, when she was around, you wanted to buy into the story. 

Anyway though, we made it into the bedroom eventually, and it was very good. And it took the rest of the night, first Pepper and Thor, and me with Lady Loki, and then we switched things around. After that, it was… well, I don’t remember.

Actually, that’s not true. I remember every single detail, and I could tell it… I want to tell it, I want to so bad. But that’s just the addiction talking, that’s me being a sex-oholic, which probably isn’t even the right word for it. Hell, I know it’s not the right word, I should find out what the right word is, I could go do that right now. Be better than sitting here writing this thing, that’s pointless for me to even write, it’s not like anyone’s ever going to see it besides me.

Maybe I’ll go do that now, I should, but I won’t. I’ll just sit here and write this thing out, as best I can, because I have to, because that way I’ll at least have something, to remind me of Lady Loki.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Please note: I pulled down Chapters 6-8 that I had posted to this story, and I am re-posting in new versions, to do better justice to the characters. Here is new-version Chapter 6.**

We were together a year. And when I say together, I mean Thor and Lady Loki lived in our house. You can do that, and still keep your regular life going. It’s amazing how much you can hide, and the façade’s still as good as ever. Guy down the street drinks a fifth of Bourbon every night, did you know that? Lady around the corner beats her kids, folks across the way have wife-swapping parties on the weekend... No, that one would get around.

Mostly, what you do inside your own little ticky-tacky house, behind the roses climbing on the white picket fence, and up the walk and behind the door with the cathedral chime built in… What you do in there is your business, and most of the time the neighbors aren’t even going to know. They didn’t know about Thor and Lady Loki. Every day I’d be out the door at 7:30, just like usual. I’d be down the street in my late-model Chevy, and out onto the highway, and I’d come home at 5:30, to a warm welcome by two gorgeous ladies, and another one, who was basically a big kid, and like a son to me, and my point is? Nobody in the neighborhood was any the wiser. They didn’t have a clue what was going on at our house. Oh, and we did take advantage of that!

Well you see, you’ve got to know, ours is a standard four-bedroom house. Big master bedroom for Pepper and me, and we turned one of the bedrooms into a den when we moved in. Other three were for if we had kids… Pepper and I were still pretending we were going to have kids when we moved in.

Kids… I don’t know. Little wiggly critters with my brown eyes, and my hair that always curls when it gets too long, or maybe they’d be redheads like their mother. Cute little tykes that would smart-talk back at me, or maybe we’d have a little girl, and she’d be my princess… Can’t say I haven’t thought about it, you know. But you don’t get kids by thinking about it. Every year it would be the same thing: I’d get a raise, I’d be like, “We can afford it, I really think we should think about it.”

Pepper would go, “Well Tony, have you looked at how much kids cost,” and the mortgage, the house repairs, the property taxes… Did you know property taxes go to pay for the schools? Basically, every time I send in my check to the county, I’m paying for other peoples’ children. But my own would cost too much, we can’t afford them, not right now Tony, maybe in another year or two, and so on and so forth, year after year after year.

And then Thor walked into our lives… And Lady Loki, I don’t want to leave her out, and she was part of it. _Part_ of it. Not a big part of it. It was Thor, mostly.

What it was… Mostly… What it mostly was: I didn’t see it until… I want to say, until it was too late, like, if I’d only realized it sooner, I could have fixed it, and everything would have been perfect. Everything wouldn’t have been perfect. Everything could never have been perfect, because there were things I couldn’t fix. And Pepper, because she wanted to fix them too. She wanted… We both wanted…

Well like I said, it started with Thor. You know, sometimes I wish I did know what his real past was, sometimes I really wonder what could have happened, that would have made him like he was when he came to us. It was unspoiled, that’s the word for it, like there was an innocence there. Like, even after everything that had happened to him, and I know a lot had to have happened to him... Stuff happens to hustlers, I learned all about that, while I was going around with Lady Loki. And we’d go to the hustler-bars, her and me. I told you, she didn’t want to go to them, only I didn’t care about that, and I would always ignore her. And we’d go to them, and there’s things you see when you’re there.

Hustlers don’t last very long, that’s the biggest thing I’m talking about here. And we’d go to those bars, Lady Loki and me… Her and me, going into those places, and it would be the same places, I mean come on, how many hustler bars do you think there are, in a middle-sized town like this one? And we’d go in there, and she’d be towering over me, in those green-and-gold dresses… I bought her a couple of new ones, while she was with us. I would get them, I would bring them home. She took a Large, I remember, Large, Extra-Tall. You think finding evening dresses in Large, Extra-Tall is easy? And even so, they would have to be lengthened to fit her full-length, and there were only so many you could find, that were green-and-gold. Or black-and-gold. Those were her colors. And I would bring these home with an air, I would act like Ogg the Caveman, bringing home a whole wooly mammoth, and I would expect all this gratitude, and all this praise.

…No, but I was saying: We’d go into those hustler-bars, Lady Loki always towered over me, she was close to seven feet tall, in her long dresses, her high, high heels under there. I’d stand next to her like a dwarf, and her black hair would be brushing against my face and down onto my shoulder. And we would go in there, and it was always the same crowd.

…Same kind of crowd, I should say. Because the people would change, I didn’t notice it at first, but they were changing all the time. This queen goes to jail, or she goes to the funny farm, because, you know, female impersonating means you’re “crazy,” and if you believe that, I’ve got a beachfront place in Fresno that I could sell you, but anyway, the queens would go away, and the hustlers? Hustlers went away more than the queens, and at first I thought they were just going to jail. Being “vagrant,” sleeping on the streets, and there’s the ever-popular hustler trick of always “clipping,” or in other words, robbing, their customers, that would get them arrested too. Took a couple months, I started noticing some of them never came back. After that is when I started seeing the stories, I guess they were always there, but I wasn’t noticing them before, and I started to realize how many hustler kids get killed, how it goes on all the time.

Which is a long way of bringing me back to what I was saying about Thor. He was out there on the street, him and Lady Loki, and certainly you would have expected it would have hardened him. Believe me when I say, I spent a lot of time with hustlers, going around with Lady Loki, and they were all hard, even the nice ones. Thor should have been too, but he wasn’t, he really wasn’t, and this is why, after a while, Pepper and me…

Well it came out because we found out that he hadn’t finished High School. Or Pepper found out really, she was the one who made it like a cause of hers that he should finish. Well she must have been bored, right? I mean, she was home all day, and like I said, about the housework? Housework was taking even less time than before by then, because of course Lady Loki was helping. She always liked to help, she got really house-proud about it. I would come home, and there would always be new stuff being bought. Little finger-towels for the bathroom, or a new casserole, in the latest pattern, with Autumn Fruits and Flowers, or what have you. Lady Loki loved that kind of stuff, she would clean up the house extra-spiffy, just so she could call attention to whatever new item it was that she’d just bought. And of course that freed Pep’s time up considerably, and what was she going to do with it? 

Well of course part of the time she was with Thor, I mean, she was _with Thor,_ because she and he were together, like Lady Loki and I were together. Part of the time they were having sex, not to get all pretty about it or any of that, but you know, you can’t have sex 24 hours a day, and there was plenty of time she had free despite that. That was the time when Pep would get restless, and at first it was just her crusade, then she got Lady Loki in on it, and then, well then Thor caught fire about it too.

After that, Pep finds this school you can do by correspondence. Apparently those things are quite popular, kids who are out of the country, or maybe they’re going to be laid up for a while or something, they can enroll by mail, they can take all their classes that way. Apparently it’s just as good as a public High School, you can get a diploma from one of those, and you can use it at any college in the country. And Pep finds one of these, she gets Thor to sign up, and...

I want to say Pepper never asked Lady Loki if she wanted to sign up for the correspondence classes too, but I don’t believe it, that doesn’t sound like her. Pep and Lady Loki… Well, it was complicated. And when I say complicated, well… See, Thor was different, he was always very different from his so-called “sister,” or his friend, or whatever it was that Lady Loki really was to him. And how can I explain how it was different? It’s hard to do it, when I can’t even really explain how it was that a hustler-kid, who was really my wife’s gigolo, but over time, Thor also became like a son to us. How do I even explain that?

How do I explain the nights when I would come home, sometimes it would be me and Lady Loki in one room, Thor and Pepper in another one, and all of us “getting it on,” as it were, or as the kids say? They say this is the era of “do your own thing,” but it isn’t really, not for us, not for any of the so-called “older generation.” It isn’t really, even for the kids, who may think they’re so “new,” and so “groovy,” but you just don’t break away from the old moral structure as easily as people like to pretend you can. 

Only that’s not true. Because you make the break, after that it just gets bigger and bigger. Nights I would be “getting it on,” with Thor and Pepper, or it would be all four of us, with Lady Loki there too, or maybe there would be more of us. I got so I would pay the hustlers off and see them to the door (you know, so they wouldn’t steal the silver on their way out etcetera), then I’d come back into Pep’s room. “How’s it going with the Math homework, Thor?” I’d say, or, you know, I would ask him about the latest English paper he was doing, or I’d ask Pep if she needed more in the checking account, to pay for his next term fees or something.

He only needed two semesters to get his diploma, and he finished halfway through the second one. Usual thing is, you take six classes, but Thor took eight, or… I think the first semester he took nine, or was it ten? Memories fail, you know how that one goes, but my point is, he was working really hard, because my point is, he got into it, like he was turning into an achiever right before our eyes.

God, I wish I could have given that kid a regular High School. He would have flourished in a regular High School… Not Lady Loki, that’s for sure, but Thor? 

I feel like I’m just talking around the truth here, like there’s something in my mind, but I can’t seem to put it down on paper. What I mean… I guess…

What I mean, was Thor became our son. He was also Pepper’s gigolo, and sometimes he was mine too, right up to the very end, but he became our son as well; sometimes I think he was our son first, and the rest of the stuff, only after that. And Lady Loki, she became…

I don’t know what she became, and that started to be a problem, and then that grew, and it grew, and it just kept on growing. And then it just broke us all apart. Pep and I still see Thor. He’s about to get his BA, and he volunteers coaching Little League during the season. Thor is doing just fine, I am proud of Thor, he’s like a chip off the old block, like he got the best from me and Pepper, and he just ran with it. We never see Lady Loki anymore. I never see her anymore. Sometimes Pep will ask me about that, she’ll say, “You know, it’s a long time since we’ve seen Lady Loki, I wonder where she’s been keeping herself," but I don’t know if she really even cares.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Recently I revised this story, going back to Chapter 6. This is part of the new, hopefully better version.**

You know there’s real life, and then there’s unreal life, the key is, to know how to tell the difference. Pepper’s a realist. She does things, she looks life in the face, no moonlight-and-rainbows, no pretty colored mythology, that she needs to help make the world a better place for her, so she can live in it. My Lady Loki on the other hand? I don’t know…

This is going nowhere. Let me try something different: You know, right at the start, I used to worry about what Pep would think about me and Lady Loki. Because it very quickly became obvious, we were an item… We were an item, but Pep and Thor really weren’t an item, not the same way. I mean, I know what I said, I in no way want to downgrade what was between them. Pep and Thor? That was like a friendship, like, “I know you, I can tell what you want just by looking at you, and I’m going to help you get it,” but, me and Lady Loki?

God, that was something special, it was like magic. I don’t know, maybe I’m the dreamer, maybe I’m the one that can’t see things clearly. And Lady Loki? Me and Lady Loki: Don’t tell me it was all dreams and illusion, don’t tell me it was all me. It wasn’t, it was real… It _is_ real, and if I could see her again, if I could just talk to her…

Somewhere along the line, Lady Loki had to have decided that I was bad for her, and I would hurt her. And sometimes it seems like I can almost catch what it was that would make her think it, but other times? Other times, I can’t see anything, it’s all just beyond me, because it was always so beautiful between us when we were together, and how could she just give up, how could she walk away from that?

But I’m not going to get anywhere if I keep jumping around. I need to tell this story, all of it, from beginning to end. This isn’t a love letter, because I’ve written those, and this isn’t one of them. This is my time for simply writing down what happened, and then afterward if I look at it, if I maybe read it over to myself? After that, maybe I’m understand what happened, and if I understand it, maybe I can fix it, and I can go to Lady Loki, and I can get her back.

…If she’d come back to me. Which she shouldn’t, because I’m bad for her. And probably all I’d do is hurt her all over again. Lady Loki, wherever you are, will you at least tell me what was the final straw? What did I do that finally hurt you so much that you had to leave, because if you’ll just tell me, I promise you, I’ll never do it again.

I think it was the sleeping around. Hustlers, Lady Loki’s friends, hell, I turned plenty of the men in my own neighborhood while I was at it too. You think I kid? Look around. Next time we have a sunny day, you watch the men out mowing their lawns. I guarantee you, I was with half of them, at least once or twice. And of course Lady Loki had to be with me for all of it, and for a while I used to pretend that she liked it. I used to pretend that I _thought_ she liked it, you see how the layers of deceit work there? I would say to myself, “This is swinging, this is two men, enjoying one beautiful…” I’d say, “This is two _men_ , enjoying Lady Loki,” or maybe, “This is two queens, and me enjoying both of them,” or this is three men, or two men and two queens, or whatever different formation I’d made out of us that evening, believe me, I had excuses for all of them. And I would pretend it wasn’t really just me, just having my way with everyone, and that I couldn’t see she was bored, she was lonely, she was unhappy…

I don’t think that’s what made her leave. I think it was Pepper.

Not that she tried, I mean, Pepper was always a good sport. Pepper was the best sport, and I know she liked both of them, Thor and Loki, and I know she wanted the best for both of them too. But there was always something. It was never… How can I say it? Right? It was never right between them? I mean, between her and Lady Loki, is that what I’m trying to say here?

I don’t know, sometimes I thought Pep hated Lady Loki, sometimes when they were together... I’m doing it again. It was my fault. Pepper never did anything, she was always generous, and so helpful. And after she had Thor signed up for those correspondence classes, then she went after Lady Loki next. And of course Lady Loki never gave us anything. Had she finished High School? Did she want to go to college? She just wouldn’t say.

No, that’s not true.

“What do I want to do?” This was one time, and we were in bed together, we were talking… 

Me and Lady Loki, you understand, as in it was just us, Pepper was probably with Thor, or she was somewhere, I didn’t care. And I said to her, “What about this thing of Pepper’s?”

Lady Loki looks at me… You know, if I close my eyes, I can still see her. How she was, how she used to be, when we were in bed together. Thing with a queen? Girls are more rounded, they’re all curves, all soft places, and dimples and billows. Queens are longer and bonier, and not just Lady Loki, because I’ve seen… God, I’ve seen too many bodies. But Lady Loki was special, all of her, her long, long legs, and her bony shoulders, and her face, oh god, her face. And I close my eyes, I can still see her, and her green eyes, under the long, dark hair, and her mouth, that would curve down a little when she was thinking. …And that night we’re talking, and she looks at me. Lips curved down, I still don’t know if she was sad, or if it was just her thinking. “What do I want?” she said.

“To do,” I said. “I mean, do you want to go to school?”

And she looks at me, I mean, she really looks at me. And worlds were in her green eyes, whole worlds, and stories, and… It was like a whole lifetime was in there, and not a good one. “I want to be Lady Loki,” she says to me, "can’t you understand that, Tony?”

And the problem was, that I could understand her. Because I didn’t want to, do you get even a little of what I mean here? Because I knew what it means to be a queen in this world, because hadn’t I been seeing them? And Lady Loki says that, she says, “I just want to be myself, Tony…”

I wish I could say I was trying to protect her. I mean, hell, I knew what she was setting herself up for when she said that. And all the arrests, the judges who will lock away a drag queen as soon as look at them. And I knew how they make their money, and all the penny-ante jobs, the unemployment checks that don’t go far enough, but it’s better than having to wear the man-clothes, which they all hate, but they know they can’t get a job if they don’t wear them. Weren’t we always going to those hustler-bars, and hadn’t I been hearing the queens talk about it? And if I had been trying to protect Lady Loki? Because god knows, she needed it.

Only I wasn’t, I was only thinking of myself. Looking out for Number One, that’s what I was doing, and what’s easiest for Tony E. Stark, what will save this comfy little life that he has for himself, and the two gorgeous women (or one woman and a gorgeous queen), and Thor who was like son-and-gigolo put together, what would protect all that? And I looked at Lady Loki, and it’s like I didn’t see her. …Like I didn’t really see her, anyway.

I looked at Lady Loki, and, “It’s just clothes,” I said… Communication. It’s all about the communication. Because that’s when it started to break down, that night, when we talked, but I didn’t listen. “…It’s just clothes,” I said.

And Lady Loki looks at me, and part of me’s thinking she’s going to be mad. “Of course it is,” she said, “all surfaces and pretend.” Then she put out her arms, and I came to her, and she smelled like the best perfume the department store had to offer, that she bought for herself after I gave her some money one time. And her hair smelled soft, and her mouth was soft, and I lost myself in her beautiful body, and that was all for the subject, at least for that one night.

But after that, I was the one to bring it up again. Over and over, and I always took Pepper’s side of the argument.


	9. Chapter 9

Worst thing that ever happened to me? And I mean the very worst? …Funny how that’s changed, recently. Used to be, I’d talk about that, I'd always mention when my dad was in the Service, and I’d talk about him going overseas, and how Mom had the war job, how Uncle Jarvis from Upstate moved in with us (“for the duration,” as we used to say), and how he watched out for me, and the worst thing that happened was Spam for Thanksgiving one year, because he couldn’t get a turkey. Funny. I had this whole thing that I’d say about how I was a spoiled American, and at least Pepper knew about struggling a little bit, because she grew up poor, and how it was the Depression, supposedly all of us had to tighten our belts, but you get down below the surface, you find out it was some people, way more than others.

I used to talk about how I was one of the lucky ones, I had this whole little routine: Pepper had to struggle, and the little house in Massachusetts, the church where the people could barely keep food on their own tables, they would pay the pastor with potatoes, or you know, a sack coal maybe, and so on. And I would say this while Lady Loki was with us, I’d point out how different it was from Yours Truly, and how she and Pepper understood each other, in a way I never could, because they’d both had to struggle. And it was true, too, and it didn’t make a dime’s worth of difference. And here, this is me in a nutshell, is that I knew it didn’t make a difference, because there’s understanding, and then there’s _understanding_ … Am I making sense at all? And if I knew that then, why the hell did I bother saying any of it? And why in front of Lady Loki, if I did have to say it?

But that’s what I would do, I would hurt her. In ways that were subtle, you understand, so subtle that I could pretend I didn’t know I was doing it, but I did know it, I knew it the whole time. I’d stand there, and I’d say those things. And Pepper never got it, and Thor never got it, and Lady Loki, well she would pretend she didn’t get it either, and I’d tell myself that I was getting away with something, but all the time, I knew that wasn’t true.

What does it say about someone, when they can live in a lie like that? When they know their whole world is fake, it’s like a thin paper covering, but they don’t like the reality underneath, so they just pretend it’s not there? I guess I could ask Lady Loki about that, couldn’t I? In our own ways we both live in a lie.

…And even as I say that… Just right now, I write down the words, and I’m already thinking that she’s different, because… Because her lie doesn’t hurt anyone, that’s why, isn’t it? Because who cares if she’s lady-Loki or man-Loki? Me? Obviously not, because I liked lady-Loki better, and if not me, then who else? Just who did she ever hurt? And I’m thinking, I hurt someone, as in, I really hurt them. I hurt Lady Loki, by making her pretend all those things that were my things, never hers, and I hurt…

You know, I think I hurt Pepper too? And Thor, I think I hurt him. Funny, isn’t it, in kind of an ironic way? There I was, with a family, for the first time in what felt like my whole life… A real family, because we were like a family, in ways we couldn’t even explain to ourselves. …There I was, with what I’d always wanted, with everything any man could ever want, a beautiful, sensible woman, and a beautiful someone else to bring the fun into his life, and you know, who also kept his bed warm at night, while his sensible wife slept with someone else, who was son to him, and friend, and also a lover, sometimes.

Funny how that sounds, when you put it into words. And I knew how it sounded, and… Well I wouldn’t have told the boss, or the guy down the road with the riding mower, but I think I told you together, you can hide a lot, behind the white picket-fence and the floor-length draperies of your average suburban four-bedroom/two-bath. …I knew exactly how it would have sounded, to anyone besides us who were living it, but I didn’t care. And if I’d had any sense at all, if I’d even had the sense most monkeys are born with, I never would have done anything, at all that would have jeopardized it, but instead…

I was telling you that I think Pep got hurt, as well as the others. Because it’s obvious how I hurt Thor and Lady Loki, because I drove them apart. I’d like to say I hurt Lady Loki because she loved me too, but… I don’t know. I guess with that, my hope is that I didn’t. Lady Loki, wherever you are… Lady Loki, you’re never going to let me talk to you again, and the truth is, I don’t blame you, if I were you, I wouldn’t talk to me either. …Lady Loki, if you did talk to me, all I’d say to you was, “Please god, I hope you never loved me, not like you loved Thor anyway, not at the end, when I drove you two apart, because it’s enough on my conscience that I drove you away from one person you loved, without it having to have been two.”

…Which is just me thinking about myself again, when I should be thinking about someone else. And it’s me not talking about Pepper, when I said I was going to talk about her, I was going to tell how I hurt her, and here I am talking about Lady Loki again.

I hurt Pepper, because in her own way, she loved Lady Loki. Not in the right way… Look at me talking about the “right” way to love Lady Loki, when I couldn’t even do it myself. …But what I was saying, Pepper did love her, she loved the fighter in her, the part of her that soaked up learning like a sponge, and grabbed every opportunity to better herself. Pepper loved the part of Lady Loki that was like herself, is what I mean, and at the beginning, they used to have so much fun with each other. Back at the beginning, when I would come home and the house would always be different, because Pep and Lady Loki would have been shopping, and the meals would always be perfect, because Pep had been teaching Lady Loki how to cook this or that. Back when you could see Lady Loki’s clothes changing, every day, and her make-up was always changing… You saw her on the street these days? In her woman-clothes, I mean, like, at night, when the queens all dress up, and they go to their bars? You saw her with what she’s learned from Pep, you probably wouldn’t look twice. Even being so tall, I’m betting she looks just like a woman, these days. …Assuming that’s what she wants to look like she does, anyway, because you can never tell what a queen’s going to want.

But that was what Pepper loved, is what I mean, because she loved the striver in Lady Loki. She loved teaching her, and making her better, but then there was only so far she could go with that. Because, of course, Lady Loki was never going to be normal like that, was she? She could never get a job as a lady, or go to school as a lady, or… I don’t know, or start a family? Or buy a house, raise 2.15 children on a hillside in ticky-tacky splendor, or, you know, achieve the American Dream?

Lady Loki could never be Pepper is what it came down to, and after a while Pep got tired of pretending that wasn’t so, and I think she started trying to make her into me instead. What a laugh, huh? Even if you knew nothing at all about Lady Loki? But I think that’s what happened, and of course it was never going to work.

...You know I started out, talking about the worst thing that ever happened to me. And how I used to talk about it, how I would say the worst was that time during the War, when Mom was working, and Dad was overseas? And I know you’ve figured out what’s happened to me since then, that’s worse than that, and how… Well, if I used to talk like I was this guy that’s never been touched by pain? Now I’m not, is what I’m saying, and I guess you know why.

Only what right do _I_ have to talk about pain, even now? What have I ever suffered, that could compare with the suffering I’ve caused? And not just to Lady Loki, to all of them, because I could have stopped it, see, I’m the only reason why it went as far as it did. Because right from the start, I knew Lady Loki was never going to compromise. Oh yeah, I pretended I didn’t, but I knew it, it’s just that the pretending was so convenient. And, “Clothes,” I said, “we’ll pay for them, and school… Beauty school? Business accounting? You just say the word, we’ll give you all the help you need.” _I_ would say those things, who was the only one of us... Besides her, I mean, besides Lady Loki herself, because lord knows, Thor’s never been a deep thinker, and Pepper? …I’d say the words, and I’d pretend it was going to work, that it could ever work, and I’d let Thor and Pep believe that it could work. That one’s my fault and only my fault, and any pain I’ve been feeling? Well, let’s just say I deserve every bit of it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This reads like an end-chapter, but it's not, there is one more coming.

I’ve been putting off writing about Lady Loki leaving, and I don’t even know why. Hell, it’s not like I still expect her to come back. I know she’s not coming back, and this journal makes me depressed every time I write in it, I might as well just write down what happened, so I can be done with this. But still…

No, I’m just going to make myself crazy if I think about it. Missed opportunities. Chances where you could have made something, something real, and lasting, but instead they come, and you don’t recognize them. Then you’re looking back through the rear view mirror, you’re saying, “Jesus, what I wouldn’t do to get another chance to fix that,” but it’s never going to happen.

You like to think you’re the hero in your life-story, but I’m not the hero in mine. Not that I’m the villain either, but… I don’t think my story has a hero, or a villain. What it’s got is some nice people, which would be Thor and Pepper, and it has Lady Loki, who was amazing, and then it has me.

I’m going to do this quick. Ripping off a Band-Aid quick, pulling out your tooth quick, tying a string to the door-knob, then slamming the door hard, like that. Here we go:

It was the day Thor got his diploma in the mail from that correspondence school. Nice day in April, one of those days like in a children’s book, sunshine and a few fluffy clouds, dancing in the clear blue sky, that kind of day. Kind of day when robins peck for worms, you look out at the lawn and you think, “Damn, I’ve got to go after those dandelions,” but it doesn’t really matter, you know? Kind of day, you don’t take a coat to work, you breathe easy when you’re coming home, taking in deep breaths, smelling the new leaves on the trees, and the flowers, and the… I don’t know, the frogs maybe?

That’s the kind of day when we killed it with Lady Loki, and remember, I say _we,_ but I always mean me, Yours Truly, Anthony E. Stark, at your service. I’m the one responsible, and it’s just pretending to say otherwise. And I got home… On that gorgeous day… It feels like I’m putting it off, talking so much about what kind of day it was like I am, but it’s not that, it’s because when I look back, that’s what I remember. 

It was a beautiful day, and the radio was playing the kind of songs that I like. You know how rare that is? These days, when you have your kid-radio stations, and they play the Beatles, the Beatles, nothing but the Beatles, all day and all night, and you have what are known as your “adult” radio stations? Adult’s a nice word for easy, safe, but that day they were playing good songs, but I turned onto our street that night, I was listening to Julie London, god, has there ever been a singer with a voice like hers?

...I turn onto the street and I want to say “End of the World” is playing, but I don’t know, isn’t that a little too appropriate? I know the reason I remember it like that is because of hindsight. Because it’s all these questions, “Why do the birds go on singing, why do the stars glow, why does my heart keep beating,” and god, aren’t those the questions I wake up asking myself every morning? And the line that really gets me, “Don’t they know it’s the end of the world, because _I lost your love_ ,” which is how it happened, it wasn’t Lady Loki randomly deciding she wasn’t going to love Anthony Stark, or she was going to leave, it was _me_ , I’m the one who lost the man, or woman, or… person… I don’t know, does it matter what she was? The point is, she was mine to lose, and I lost her.

Never mind, let’s just finish the story. So I’m in my car, right? And I’m coming home, I’m feeling good because something I like is on the radio, and because of the weather, and just because it was one of those good kind of days. And of course I’m not thinking of all the times I’ve messed up with Lady Loki, because you don’t think about things like that at the time, only afterward, when it’s too late to do anything. I come home, I pull into the garage, and I go inside, and after that…

Like I said, Thor’s correspondence school diploma came that day, and believe me when I tell you, you get your money’s worth with those things. You looked at it, you would have thought it came from Harvard, it was that fancy, and of course Thor was very happy about it, and Pepper was happy for Thor, and I think Lady Loki was happy too.

No, that doesn’t sound right. She was happy. Lady Loki loves Thor, she’s always loved Thor. I could think of any of the times when things were the worst between them, but even then? Well, there was always the love there underneath, is what I’m saying, and Lady Loki was very happy for Thor, just like Pepper was… Just like the rest of us, I should say, because of course I was happy too. But there was an undercurrent.

Poor Thor. You’ve got to feel bad for him, you know? So maybe he acted a little rough after things started to go south that night, but wouldn’t anyone have done the same thing if they’d been in his shoes? Wasn’t that supposed to be his night? Weren’t we supposed to be celebrating his accomplishment, which was a big one, I mean, for a kid who came off the streets to graduate High School, that’s really something. Well it should have been something, but instead he gets me and Lady Loki and Pepper, and what should have been his night…

It really is hard to write about this. And not just because I feel bad about it, and not just because …you know, I lost… God, it sounds so stupid to say I lost the one love of my life. Did I even, or am I dramatizing? …I lost Lady Loki, is what I’m trying to say, and yeah, I think about her every day, and yeah, it’s hard even writing about what happened, but add onto that, I’m just not a writer. I’m trying to explain something that happened, and I know it happened, because I’m still living with the consequences of it, but when it did happen? Well you couldn’t see it on the outside, is what I mean, it was all about moods, and things below the surface, and one minute everything was okay, but then after that suddenly everything was wrong.

I wish I could point to one thing that I did, or that somebody else did, but I can’t, it wasn’t that simple. I came home, and everybody was all dressed up. Pep was in her best glamor-lady togs, and Thor was wearing a suit, and Lady Loki was… Well, she wasn’t in the room, right when I walked in the door, I remember that. And the others said she was upstairs, she was getting dressed, and they showed me Thor’s diploma.

So I made a big deal out of it, because what else was I going to do? I mean, it was a big deal, so naturally I made a fuss, and then Pepper said, “Let’s all go out to dinner,” and I said, “Yeah.”

And I went upstairs to get dressed, and Lady Loki was getting dressed in her room too. She came in and asked me to zip her up in back, I remember it like it was yesterday (because, of course, it was the last time I ever got to do it). She looked beautiful that night, but then when did she ever not look beautiful? And did I tell her she looked beautiful? Probably. Look at me, Anthony Stark, I’ve never had a problem with saying nice things to people. Flattery, sweet words, they come to me as naturally as breathing. 

They come too naturally is what, and I’ll say them, and sometimes I don’t think they have much meaning. “You look gorgeous,” I probably said, and I probably bent when I said it, kissing the back of her neck, right where the hair starts, the place where the smell of a woman’s perfume meets up with her own natural woman-smell, which is the best place to kiss any woman. Easy, flattering words, and the easy kisses, and me, Anthony Stark, trading in them, and ignoring the important things. But I’m paying for it, oh god, am I paying… I just wish I were the only one who’s had to pay.

Well I said those flattering things, and then Lady Loki stepped back, let me look at her, you know, full-length. I did notice it wasn’t a new dress. I’d seen this one before, a few times, and… Did I notice that she was the only one without something new that night? Because Pep’s dress was new, and even Thor at least had a new tie, but Lady Loki? No, I probably didn’t notice, or if I did, I would have put it down to, you know, it’s hard finding size Large, Extra-Tall, lord knows I know that if anyone does. And we went downstairs.

I also didn’t notice the funny little look Pepper gave Lady Loki. Or if I did, I just put it down as nothing, she was always giving her funny looks by the end of things, because she wanted to make her over like I’ve told you. Pep looks at her like, “Are you really going to go out like that?” but I didn’t notice, not until I was thinking it over later. I also didn’t notice the tension, not until it started getting really bad.

And it got bad during dinner. Big steaks all ‘round for everyone, and the salads with bleu cheese dressing, basket of fresh rolls on the table, and I know Thor would have ordered dessert if we’d stayed that long. But we didn’t stay that long, we were gone way before that. And there we are, sitting there with those steaks in front of us… You ever notice how a rare steak looks blue when it gets cold? Blue, and greasy, with white veins of fat going through the meat, and you’ll look at that thing, you’ll think, “How did I ever want to eat _that_?” You’ll think, “What was I thinking? That doesn’t even look like food.” At least you will if you’re me, and if there are other things going on, and you really don’t want to think about them.

Fish-eyes from Pepper, aimed over Lady Loki’s way, and the glances she kept throwing me, glances that said loud as words, “Aren’t you going to say something, Tony?”

And I knew what she wanted me to say, but I wasn’t going to say it. Not that I was going to be a man, and walk away from her campaign to make Lady Loki into something she wasn’t, I wish that I could say I was, but I wasn’t that brave. I just wanted us to have one more… Why does it feel like I should say I wanted one _more_ peaceful meal? If you’d asked me at the time, I would have sworn we still had lots of them ahead of us.

Thor’s the one of us that blew up. And he said a lot of things that I’m sure he regrets now, all this about how Lady Loki… _His_ Lady Loki, and mine. …He said she was an “embarrassment,” and he said she wasn’t fooling anyone, when he of all people, second only to me, but god knows both of us should have known that she could fool an expert. Thor said that, and he said some more stuff, and Lady Loki looks at me…

God, those eyes. Oh god, if anything haunts me on my deathbed, it will be those eyes of hers, that last night, when the betrayal was all gone, because of course I had betrayed her so many times already by then, but the sadness… Oh god, it breaks my heart.

She didn’t leave, Thor left. Then Pepper went after Thor. She looked back at me, she said, “Tony, aren’t you coming?”

I looked at her, I said, “Can’t you handle this?” And I looked at Lady Loki, but I knew it was too late. “I’m sorry,” I said, and she didn’t answer, and I knew there was no good answer she could give, to a lie like that. If I’d been sorry, I would have acted different, and now it was too late, and we got up after a while, and we both left. And we caught a taxi home, because Pep and Thor had taken the car, and the next day, I wasn’t even surprised, when we woke up and found out that Lady Loki had left during the night. And Thor was surprised, and he was sad, and Pep tried to laugh it off, like, “Oh, well I guess _she_ knows best, and if she wants to make _bad choices_ …” Poor Pepper, she didn’t mean it, she was as devastated as the rest of us, only she didn’t know how to show it.

And now I’ve told the story. I wish I could say there was more of it, but there’s not. Lady Loki, wherever you are, this is my apology to you. I’ve apologized to Thor in person (and, poor guy, he accepted), but I can understand why you won’t let me do the same thing for you.


	11. Chapter 11

I’m not good at telling stories. You know, I pulled this diary out again. Finally. Three years, it’s been at the bottom of my underwear drawer, under the stack of _Playboys_ that I never look at anymore because… I don’t know. Only I do know, the thing with _Playboy_? It’s a substitute. And… 

You know, sex is kind of a substitute? Love’s what matters, and if you don’t have that… Look at me, talking like a teenage girl reading a romance novel. I don’t read the _Playboys_ because I had love, and I lost it, and after I lost it, well, it just wasn’t the same.

Anyway, I pulled this thing out… You know, I read the whole thing over again before I started writing? Thing reads like nothing more than a bunch of excuses: “Dear Lady Loki, please forgive me for what I did, because I am Tony Stark, and my feelings matter more than anyone else.” My feelings don’t matter. And as for me being supposedly so wonderful at understanding everyone else? Well I’m not. Turns out Lady Loki’s back, turns out she got in touch with… Guess who. Go ahead, guess.

…Turns out _my_ Lady Loki, as I used to like to think of her, only she’s not, she’s always been her own person. And it turns out she’s back, not in terms of back in town, because I don’t know if she ever left, but in terms of… Well, she got in touch with us. …with one of us... She got in touch with Thor.

And while I’m writing that, I’m already thinking, “Of course she did.” Because weren’t they together first? Weren’t they almost like brother and sister, before Pep and me… No point using pretty words here, what I mean is, before we pulled them apart. Because we did pull them apart, Pep with all her optimism, and her plans, and me with my… I don’t even know what to call it. Anyway though, at least there’s some good news here, right? Here’s something that I thought I’d destroyed, and you know what, even now, after all this time, I still think I’m the one responsible. Because... I don’t know why, only I do, it’s because I’m the selfish one. Because at least Pepper was trying to help, but me? I was just taking care of myself.

Men don’t like to admit that, you know? I think… I don’t know what other men don’t like, I know what I like. And just like I used to say, this is a diary, and the only person who’s probably ever going to read it, is me. And there’s no point lying to yourself: I don’t like admitting it, but I was selfish, dead-selfish, nothing but selfish. Old baseball expression, sitting in the catbird seat: Means when you’re sitting pretty, and I was sitting so pretty, I had my wife, and I had my…

I had Lady Loki, you know I’ve done some reading since those days? Funny thing, how feeling… How _feelings_ , why try to give ‘em a name, but they seem to make you start paying attention, like there’s a whole world out there, but it’s not until it affects you personally, and then you start paying attention. After Lady Loki left, it was like the subject was there, everywhere I turned, and that subject was… You know there isn’t even really a good name for it? Transsexuals is what they call it, which means people who are born in one sex, but they want to be the other one, but I don't know if that's a good name. You'll read about Christine Jorgenson though, or maybe you saw _Myra Breckinridge_ (which, by the way, was a damn lousy movie)? I guess that must be what Lady Loki was (is), I guess she’s a transsexual. It doesn’t sound right, but what else are you going to call it, and the reason she left us was because she wants to be a woman, and there we were, both of us trying our damndest to make her back into a man.

Dear Lady Loki, you’re never going to read this, because for one thing, I don’t want to put you through all the selfishness and all my excuses. But if you did read it though, my dear Lady Loki, let me say for the record, you are already a woman as far as I’m concerned, I’m just so sorry I didn’t tell you that, four years ago.

…Yeah, did I ever mention I’m not good at telling stories? Such a long buildup, and really, the story’s not all that complicated. We were over at Thor’s place, and we found a picture…

I want to write a little about Thor, and I guess this is my diary, why not do what I want? I want to write about what a success Thor’s made of himself, it feels like I should do that, like, I don’t know, like I owe it to him maybe. Because yeah, we gave him his start, but that was a long time ago, and the rest of it? The rest was all Thor, doing it himself. And he has done so much, for a kid coming from the streets, for a dropout, a _hustler_ , for god’s sake: BA from the state college, and a good job teaching PE at the High School here in town. And he’s engaged, nice girl who teaches Science, and what’s most important?

Don’t tell me it’s all about material success, because I know better, if anyone does. Because I watched my Lady Loki walk away from all that, I saw her go back out onto the mean streets, because… I don’t know how to explain it. I mean, I know with Lady Loki, I know how she walked away because she needed to be herself, because that was success for her, but with Thor? I’m making this too complicated, when it’s really very simple, what I mean is that love matters, just as much as anything material, if not more so. And what I mean to say is that Thor is a success love-wise, his girl Jane loves him, and we love him, and look how Lady Loki got in touch with him first, not me, or anyone else. So that means she loves him too, and that’s saying something.

That’s saying a lot, really, but I’m trying to tell this story. I’m just going to write it down, and then if I still feel like writing at all afterward, which I probably won’t, but if I do, well then I will try to understand the feeling-part when I get there. So let’s go: It was fall, Thanksgiving. Pep and I were over at Thor’s place, usually we have him here, but you know, he has that girlfriend now, and she wanted to cook. And we were over there… She’s going to be a good wife for him, in a lot more ways than the cooking. In terms of new curtains, slipcovers for all the furniture… First time I’ve ever been over there, that the place wasn’t all dusty, and it used to smell like a locker room… Well, he is a PE teacher, after all. 

In short, what I’m saying here… If I’m saying anything at all, which I’m not really, I’m kind of writing everything all around it. But cutting the too-long-already story as short as I can here, Pepper and I were at Thor’s place, and we saw the picture that Thor had turned facedown, probably because we were coming. No, it was because we were coming, he as much as told me so. He had this picture of Lady Loki, beautiful posed deal, taken I don’t know where, but it was…

It was just what every picture of Lady Loki should be, in terms of beautiful, and glamorous, and… She looked happy, that’s what I’m trying to say. That was the best thing about that picture, there she was, posed, what they call a three-quarter angle, green dress, her favorite color, with the gold accents, and with that smile, that wonderful smile… Smile said, “I’ve made it,” I don’t even know what that means for my Lady Loki, for Thor’s Lady Loki, no, for her _own_ Lady Loki, and I’m lying, I do know what it means. Smile means she’s not living anyone else’s dream for her, she is her own person, and wherever she is… And whatever she’s doing…

I have to keep this thing one step at a time, because if I jump ahead… Because Pep jumped ahead last time, and I helped her, and look what happened then. Let me just tell this: Lady Loki’s back, and I know she wants to see us. Don’t say that’s crazy, I know it sounds crazy, but I also know it makes sense. Because Lady Loki knows Thor, she would have known he’d hide that picture, but she knows Pep and me too, and she’d also know that we were going to look. She wanted us to see it, this one, because Thor told me, it’s not the first picture she’s sent. She’s sent him photos before, but snapshots, you know? And this was the first posed one, the first one he could put on display. And I know my Lady Loki ( _her own_ Lady Loki), she’s smart enough that she knew who else was going to see it (AKA, _us_ ), and if she sent it, she was sending us a message as well as Thor, and that message is, “I’m well, I’m happy, I’m safe.”

That right there, that’s enough. I could live on that if I had to, but if I know Lady Loki… Oh god, I hope I do. In my dreams, in my fantasies, in the times when I let myself think about how it could be, and should be, and might be… I want that picture to be a first step, that’s what it comes down to. Now I know she’s okay, but I admit it, I want more (because it’s always about me, isn’t it?). If she came to us… To me… 

I don’t care, let her come to us, to me and Pepper, and I’ll say to her, “Let me give you…” I don’t know what…

What I want to give her, I want to give her safety, pay for that sex-change operation, just like Christine Jorgenson. No one calls Christine Jorgenson a queen. No one makes her live on the street, cops aren’t waiting to arrest her if her hair’s a little too long, or her clothes look like women’s clothes. Christine Jorgenson is a woman, a whole woman. Through surgery maybe, but she is, and she gets treated as one, and if that’s what it takes…

No. Not this, not again. You know why I got this old diary back out after all these years? Know why I’m writing in it again? I know Lady Loki is ready to see us again... I hope. ...When I say “us”, by the way? I think she’s going to see Pep and me, and you know what, no matter how much it hurts, I think she’s making the right choice there. I think she knows what I didn’t know, what I didn’t let myself know, or didn’t let myself admit, might be more accurate. I think she knows I was never going to leave Pepper, I think she understands that we are a couple forever, no matter what happens. But Lady Loki is coming back to us because god help her, because besides Thor, we are the closest thing she has to a family. And for my own sake, I don’t care, I mean, I do, but…

Never mind. If she comes back, that’s all, that’s enough. Let her come back to me and Pepper, at least just to talk. This time I want to be ready. I want to have my ducks in a row, as it were, I want to know just what to say. I don’t dare breathe one word about those sex-change operations, because they are too easy. Because I know my Pep, she wants what is best for Lady Loki just like I do, but she doesn’t understand Lady Loki, any more than she ever did. Pep wants what looks best, what looks safe, which is why she pushed so hard for her to go back to living like a man, the other time. But I know there’s more to Lady Loki, it’s up to me to make sure she gets what _she_ wants.

…And to be safe, because I do want that too. But it has to be up to _her_. What _she_ wants, is what I want to give her, and as much, and for as long as she will let me, and first I’m going to wait until she gets in touch. It’s December now, I’m hoping Christmas, but I can be patient.


End file.
